Charlotte Mason for High School

I'm in the process of researching how to home school through high school the Charlotte Mason way.  I'm very excited about this, since most students actually enjoy learning in this fashion.  I've been using this style (eclectically to a degree) for elementary, and now junior high.  We like it so much that I want to make sure we can do it through high school as well.

http://simplycharlottemason.com/2010/03/17/basic-mainstays-homeschooling-through-high-school-the-cm-way/

http://www.amblesideonline.org/ 
I'm including the link for Ambleside online  because it actually has book lists, and since a lot or most of the books are classics, they can be obtained mostly for free!


One of the biggest things that hooked me with the Charlotte Mason education is that we use living books.

"What is a “living book”?

Living books are usually written by one person who has a passion for the subject and writes in conversational or narrative style. The books pull you into the subject and involve your emotions, so it’s easy to remember the events and facts. Living books make the subject “come alive.” They can be contrasted to dry writing, like what is found in most encyclopedias or textbooks, which basically lists informational facts in summary form."

The student uses narration to show if they retain the information from the material they have read.

"Narration requires a much higher thinking level than fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, or true or false. And if we saw the value of this method during the earlier grades, how much more should we require this higher thinking level now that our children are older?" 

 Oral narration eventually transitions to written narration.

This is a biggie for me.  I made high A's in high school  language arts, but when it came to writing an essay to be placed into a college level English class, I didn't make it.  I was placed into a college prep English class to learn the things I already knew.  It was very discouraging for me.  I hope that, even if my boys do not choose the college path, that they will be able to express themselves in written form.

Local Exploration- Friday, October 5, 2012

These are some pictures I took of the boys when I took them to Williams Dam.  For some reason, I didn't post most of the pictures I took and I didn't publish it.  It was in my drafts folder.  This was a Friday getaway. We tried to do this on Fridays.  Very enjoyable!